Saturday, August 22, 2009

Yes, no. Black, white. Huh?

So I skim through the news as I do. I am a journalist, it's my job don't cha know? I muddle through the muck, the lies, the bright lights of the sexy stories dujour, and every now and then I find something that punches me in the gut. That makes me either shake my head with a 'what?' or makes me raise my fist in a 'bull shit!'. It is these stories that I have decided need to be pulled apart, and dissected like a frog in a high school biology lap. The cancer that are the lies, ideological biases, or just the over-emphasis on that which may be the sexy, controversial bit, yet do nothing but stand in the way of the truth, are to be surgically removed. Truth? Ya I know, I don't believe any of it in the first place. How about truth as I see it, which could look like complete bullshit to everyone else?

What got me today, was not a story, but a poll which was an appendage to a story. (read this) It is not even so much the results that bother me with this poll (I always seem to vote with the minority, funny that), but that this poll only allows immigration to be viewed in two lights: 1. The republic way (USA, France)/melting pot, where yes immigration is permitted, but when the immigrant becomes a citizen, as soon as the last bit of paperwork is dotted and signed, culture be damned you are one of us now. Or 2. Respect for the cultural diversity of the immigrant (Canada? I thought, but where have all the Trudeauites gone?), where immigration is promoted and citizenship granted, but cultural diversity is allowed, if not celebrated.

This is my problem. It's the duality of the whole thing. It's the yes or no, the black or white or shudder, the us versus them.

You will be either an abiding citizen, or an immigrant living in my country. That, or you are both a citizen with all it's rights and privileges and thus encouraged to express the traditions of your culture (sounds utopic, that would explain the 19% in the poll). The first option is too cold, the second too saccharine. There has to be a third option, or a fourth, even a fifth. Sure it isn't an easy question, but the answer is more all the above, than true or false. We are forever building walls in order that they are there to tear down in the future. The circle of life?